Saturday, December 08, 2012

NEWS CORPORATION: EXECUTIVE EXIT

Peter Chernin will no longer remain at News Corp. But why is he leaving? And who will be his successor?

Even experts opine that Chernin was never too pleased with the fact that he will always remain the ‘second-in-command’ at News Corp. What made matters worse was the fact that Murdoch had also previously clarified that his successor would be amongst his 3 children (Lachlan, Elisabeth and James Murdoch).

There is another school of experts which suggests that Chernin does not share a very comfortable relationship with Rupert’s children and that matter definitely would get out of hand if he waited any longer. Take Lachlan Murdoch’s example for that matter: Lachlan served as deputy to Chernin a few years ago, but there were clashes between the two and many believe that it was one of the major reasons why Lachlan handed over his resignation letter in 2005. So who will follow Murdoch? Well, Elisabeth Murdoch refused an invitation to rejoin News Corp’s board (from which she resigned in 2000), and so that leaves us with James Murdoch (the youngest of siblings and overseas New Corp’s operations in Asia & Europe) as the most ‘natural’ successor.

For now, the question remains: who will succeed Chernin? “Peter and I will work closely over the next 4 months to ensure an effective transition,” comments Rupert. And till the process is complete, Rupert will take over most of Chernin’s responsibilities. The battered stock market hasn’t treated News Corp well either of late, its price having plumetted by a painful 67% since last year! For now though, succession planning needs to click for the media empire; and sooner, the better.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

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